Map of Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia with Ethopia and Cambodia higlighted

The Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership led by CU Boulder was organized and manged the the Mortenson Center beginning in 2016. The learning partnership coordinated the efforts of seven organizations in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia seeking to develop, test and document sustainable approaches to local water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) to support initial infrastructure investments.

The project was unique in that it partnered with local organizations to implement and compare activities across multiple countries and contexts  offering a more holistic picture of what works and what doesn’t from a systems level. The final report summarizes the work and shows how a systems-level understanding and engagement approach can help providers navigate challenges to service sustainability. It also shows how incentivizing preventive maintenance and fast repair times can improve rural water services and describes how collective action platforms can bring about policy change.

Amy Javernick-Will and Karl Linden, both associate directors of the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering and co-principal investigators for the project, said this final report serves as a cap to an incredibly productive and valuable research project. 

The Partnership's main website is available at https://www.globalwaters.org/sws.

Read the final report

    SWS Resources